Welcome back to another #ThoughtFULLThursday. My name is Casey Hasten and I am an Executive Recruiter, Director of Recruiting with VIP, host of the We Are VIP Podcast and all-around hiring guru. I focus on hiring the right people, whether internally or externally for my clients, giving new hires every tool they need to be successful, and coaching on building better teams.
I have blogged on mindset many times before, but I feel this is such an important topic to continue to address personally and when mentoring/coaching our teams. It is so critical we teach them to value their mindset and protect it from “stinkin’ thinkin’” in the great Zig Ziglar’s terms. Today I want to address the scripts we write in our heads.
It has often been said, “perception is reality.” But is it really? Our mind believes what we perceive, but does that really make it true? While working with one of my clients, a chain of events occurred resulting in an epic argument between two co-workers. One team member got cross about an action of another and then every subsequent action and reaction from the other team member supported the original perception.
After the blow-up, we sat down to discuss what had happened and it turned out the original perception was inaccurate. After we realized this, the supporting events were now seen as completely unrelated. This episode cost the company time and money as they addressed the script and could have been avoided had the employees clarified the perception to find the true reality in the beginning.
Have you ever overheard two people whispering, but could not hear what was actually being said, yet knew they were talking about you? Let the scripts begin! Why are they whispering when I am right here? They must be talking about me or they would not be whispering? Sound familiar? We are way more important in our own minds and in reality, they are probably NOT talking about you at all. But if they are, so what? Refer to my earlier blog, Mind Your Own Business!
I am every bit as guilty of writing scripts in my head as anyone else. However, once I recognized what I was doing, I began to discipline my mind to not chase ghosts of ideas and create stories about what could be happening but which I did not know for sure. Your mind will target information to support your beliefs…that’s just the way our wonderful mind works. (I will have to write a separate blog on how to challenge your beliefs!) If you believe someone does not like you, your mind will search for evidence to support his or her dislike.
How do we control our scripts? The easiest way to not go down a negative path about anyone’s action that affects you is to assume good intentions. In our sales environment, we have Rules of Engagement. For example, if I call a client, I have protection over that client for a certain amount of time. Sometimes though, another sales team member might call that client within my protection period. Instead of writing a script saying the team member was out to get me, I now assume he or she had the good intention of gaining more business for the team and address the situation calmly with the team member regarding the protection period. Most of the time, it was merely an oversight, not an intentional slight.
Next, do not dwell on the situation. If the event was important enough to change your thinking tract, address the situation immediately to determine the true reality not just your perception.
Finally, if your perception was the true reality, decide on your next steps. In the earlier example, let’s assume my team member intentionally violated my protection period. Now that I know this is the case, I will take appropriate action to reinstate my ownership over this client and to reprimand the team member for disregarding the Rules of Engagement.
It is not easy to stop the scripts, but if we can learn how to do this and teach our teams how to recognize this behavior, our teams will be much stronger!
I hope this has been helpful. Today, I challenge you to pay attention to your thought process and when you find yourself writing scripts, stop and ask yourself if this perception or reality?